Efforts to open a Trader Joe’s grocery store in Boulder have taken a step forward Tuesday. Work has commenced to demolish the former Applebee’s restaurant, 1906 28th St., at the Twenty Ninth Street mall.

Once the brick building is razed, construction will start on the 14,000-square-foot Trader Joe’s, which is expected to open in 2013 and possibly by late fall, mall officials said.

“This is a big project, and there’s a lot of work and a lot of moving pieces that go into it,” said J.T. Fulton, Twenty Ninth Street’s property manager. “Obviously, we’d like the store to be up in a day. It’s not a reality.”

Whether the Boulder store will be the first Trader Joe’s in Colorado remains unclear. A second Trader Joe’s is under construction off Colorado Boulevard and East Eighth Avenue in Denver.

Officials for Trader Joe’s say that Denver location — which will house the chain’s sole liquor store in Colorado — has a tentative opening for the fourth quarter of 2013. Colorado law allows grocery stores and chains only one liquor license to sell full-strength beer, wine and spirits.

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